


Betraying Yourself

by razboinicul_iernii



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Delusions, Depressed Steve Rogers, Gen, Hallucinations, Insomnia, It is fairly vividly described so take care, Mentions and evidence of wet dreams, Nightmares, POV Steve Rogers, Paranoia, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Seizures, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, Steve Rogers Has Issues, brief clinical description of sexual acts, greetings children it is suffering time, kind of, mildly so but it's probably noticeable enough to warrant the tag, this may not be what the summary makes it seem like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 19:58:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10578441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/razboinicul_iernii/pseuds/razboinicul_iernii
Summary: Bucky came back to Steve in one piece. Steve is trying hard to keep it that way.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I will mention again just in case it was missed in the tags: there is one scene of fairly vividly described self-injury.

Steve didn't sleep too much. He blamed the serum, even if he knew with perfect certainty that he'd slept just fine before the plane crash. Which was impressive, given that he'd been laying in cold bed rolls in European forests for most of that period of his life. When he did sleep, the lightest sound tended to wake him. And the future had a lot of those. Between his phone buzzing with random notifications during the night, the air conditioner kicking on or off, the hum of the fridge changing in pitch, or even just the ever-present buzz of electricity that could worm its way to the forefront of his mind in the night time silence, there was plenty of noise to keep him up.  
  
So he was on his feet quickly when he heard a shocked gasp followed by a strained, almost muted kind of scream. Like the noise was caught in their throat, squeezing out where it could from between gritted teeth. Steve bolted, fearing the worst. HYDRA back for their asset. Here to finish the job Bucky had failed in. Some new threat altogether.  
  
Bucky was on the couch, back arching, fingers digging into the cushions. His jaw was clenched shut, eyes wide and desperate and he shook like he was having a seizure. Steve was momentarily frozen to the spot as he considered his options. Did he approach? Would that startle Bucky? Was he even present enough to be aware that Steve was there? He knew not to try to move him, that there wasn't much he could do besides watch this happen and it made him feel impossibly useless.  
  
Before he could get any closer, Bucky suddenly went still. Tense muscles melted and he laid there bonelessly, staring at the ceiling. He seemed confused when he finally blinked but he said nothing, asked nothing. That was typical enough behavior in the week or so that Steve had spent with him since he came back home from the hospital to find him here waiting. After a few minutes of silence, Steve tried, “Bucky?”

He turned to look at Steve and said, “Sir.” His voice was gritty and shook when he spoke.  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
He nodded.  
  
“Has this ever happened before?” He ventured to take a step closer and that seemed acceptable. He squatted next to the sofa, trying to stay on Bucky's level.  
  
He nodded again, the confusion returning to his face. Like Steve should know the answer.  
  
“Maybe...” He stopped himself from making the suggestion. The first and only time Steve offered to take Bucky to a doctor, to be certain he was uninjured and healthy, Bucky had disappeared for an entire day. When he came back, he apologized for 'insubordination' and had tensely waited for Steve to reprimand him. He wasn't sure he could go through all that again. Nervous as he was the days after the collapse of SHIELD, it was nothing compared to the idea that he'd driven Bucky away from maybe the safest place he could be. He'd ruminated over a variety of awful scenarios, the most recurrent pair involving Bucky ending up dead or returning to a life as HYDRA's slave.  
  
The shaking hadn't lasted very long. There were no outward signs of further problems. And when it came to health issues, the serum tended to fix pretty much everything sooner or later. So he decided to wait and see. If it happened again, even just once, he'd drag Bucky to a hospital himself if he had to. But if this was some odd, one time thing, Steve hated to put Bucky through any more stress. Part of him thought this was absurd, to ignore a blatant health issue. The rest of him saw Bucky there on that couch and couldn't bear losing him because he'd pushed over what turned out to be nothing.  
  
“Do you need anything?” he asked instead.  
  
Bucky shook his head, but his eyes stayed on Steve, as if expectant. Maybe he wanted to be alone.  
  
Steve didn't get back to sleep that night. Not for lack of trying. He laid there in his bed, tensed every time he heard Bucky move around. Either out of anticipation of some kind of violence or another seizure. Eventually he quieted but Steve was still awake. Finally, once it was closing in on five in the morning, he stepped out for a run, unable to stay in bed any longer. As he walked through the living room to leave, he paused. Bucky wasn't on the couch anymore. He'd relocated to the middle of the floor. No pillows, no blankets. Steve pressed his lips together and grabbed the one off the couch, laying it over him and hoping Bucky hadn't purposefully left it when he moved.  
  
When Bucky first came back, he'd been a complete wreck. Starving, with trembling hands, twitchy, every noise worth starting over. Steve got him to eat and told him to sleep, that he could use his bed if he wanted, but Bucky had just stared. He'd done that a lot and Steve wasn't sure if it was because he'd said something confusing, something too different from what he was used to, or if he was just in such a bad way he'd had a hard time comprehending. Either way, Steve settled on sitting on opposite ends of the couch and since the first time Bucky all but passed out there, that's where he'd slept. Now as he laid curled up on the hard, cold floor, Steve had to wonder what changed. He thought about the possible seizure, but surely Bucky didn't blame something like that on the couch, so he was at a loss.  
  
Days passed without any issues. Bucky continued to sleep on the floor instead of the couch and Steve was seriously considering offering his own bed again. It wasn't like he used it much anyway. He got up that morning planning to do just that to find Bucky already awake. Steve never purposefully woke him up. He slept kind of erratically. More than Steve, even. He'd go a few days without, then take three hours for every six he was awake. Or he'd sleep twelve straight and go back to not sleeping for days. Steve tried to help set a more routine schedule by going back to his room around eleven or so and not coming out until six, if he could. Steve wasn't sure how often it actually helped but figured it couldn't hurt either of them to try.  
  
He gave up on small talk over bowls of cereal. Bucky didn't understand and always seemed tense and frustrated by it, like he was expecting something more, probably something worse. He was wound up waiting for the orders to come, for the mission to be explained and the seemingly meandering nature of the useless parts of the conversation just made the anticipation that much more stressful. He couldn't fathom why Steve would want to tell him about the weather or something equally inane, and Steve felt like an idiot for being unable to manage a more meaningful conversation with someone he cared about so deeply. But he couldn't bring himself to explain that to Bucky. Not now. Not when he might not even understand that, either. What value could someone place in him other than his usefulness to them as a tool? Picturing the confused, uncomprehending look on his face as Steve attempted to spill his guts was enough to keep the words tamped down.  
  
So he cut to the chase. “Hey, do you want to use my bed? We can take turns or something. Every other night kind of thing.”  
  
Bucky looked at him but said nothing. Eyes searching for the catch, for a tell, for something that would help him give the 'right' answer to his new, unfamiliar superior.  
  
Steve shrugged. Maybe this was just unnecessary stress for him. Maybe they just needed a bigger place, with a spare bedroom. Maybe they just needed a team of doctors to unravel their tangled-cord brains and put them back in place neatly, with the kinks smoothed out. “It was only an idea. You don't have to,” he said.  
  
They finished the food in silence and Steve offered up the use of the bathroom before he took a shower. These kinds of questions were easier for Bucky to answer. Simple, biological processes that came with their own distinct cues. No grey areas, no wondering over potential reactions or expected protocol. Bucky shook his head so Steve gathered some clothes and shut himself in. Then he pulled back the curtain and was mildly startled to find it filled with dozens of canned goods. Vegetables, soups, tomato sauce, beans, probably every can of food in his kitchen had been relocated to the tub. He stared for a minute, making sure he was seeing this right before he turned away and went back out to find Bucky.  
  
“Hey,” he said as he came back out into the living room. Bucky sat in his spot on the floor, hands in his lap and legs crossed, like he was waiting for something. Was this what he did whenever Steve wasn't around? Just sat and stared into space? “Um, there's a bunch of cans in the tub. Do you know anything about that?”  
  
Bucky nodded but offered no explanation.  
  
So Steve asked, “Why are they there?”  
  
“Your orders, sir.”  
  
Steve swallowed as he thought carefully. Had anything he'd said recently approximated an order to put all the food in the bathroom? Probably not, but he figured it was only fair to think about it for a minute. “I don't remember telling you to do that,” Steve said, keeping his tone light. He didn't want Bucky to assume he was in trouble, even if that was his default assumption most times Steve spoke with him.  
  
“You requested that a stockpile of canned goods be placed in the bathroom for safekeeping because no one would look there for them.”  
  
Steve was certain he'd never said anything like that. Why would he? Even as a joke it didn't really make any sense. “Okay,” he said. “I don't remember that.”  
  
Bucky's eyes flicked uneasily to the couch before returning to Steve. As if at a loss, he repeated quietly, “Your orders, sir.”  
  
Steve didn't argue further. It wouldn't get them anywhere and Steve wasn't sure what to even suspect had actually happened. Did Bucky just radically misinterpret something? Was this an old, half-forgotten assignment someone had given to him which he'd suddenly remembered and integrated into the framework of his current situation? A hallucination? He pressed his lips together at the thought of the last possibility. How could he figure that out? With someone like Bucky, it seemed impossible to know if he was hearing things that weren't there, or just remembering something from before. There was no medical precedent for a brain that reforged memories the way Bucky's slowly was, so no one could say in what manner the process would exhibit itself in his behavior. Maybe reclaimed old memories would hit him abruptly and seem like things that had just happened. “Okay. Well, I need to use the shower. So I'm going to put all the food back in the kitchen, okay?”  
  
Bucky studied him, searching his face for hints of anger, for a sign of an impending punishment to follow a dissatisfying performance. Steve kept his face carefully neutral. Too serious, and it seemed angry. Too friendly, and it seemed suspiciously so. Bucky finally said, “Okay.” He got to his feet to help Steve unprompted.  
  
The worst day, for Steve, came four or five days later. Bucky had been passed out for over nine hours now and Steve couldn't bring himself to force him awake in an attempt to instill a more normal sleeping routine. Instead he'd opted to quietly work around him. It was three in the afternoon and he didn't have much to do anyway. He read a lot. Listened to history talk shows. There was so much to learn and it kept him busy in these weird days following the downfall of SHIELD. He usually saved things like movies or TV for when Bucky was awake. It was an easy way to include him in something normal, something simple.  
  
The sudden crack and crash was loud and seemed to stab through his ears. He jerked around and cursed under his breath before bolting to the threshold of the kitchen. Dust was settling and he stared briefly at the new hole in the wall between the living room and his bedroom. Through it, he could see Bucky pushing himself up off the floor, scrambling to his feet, raining powdery plaster and drywall from his hair and back.  
  
“Bucky, what the hell-” he started, making it to his room in a few short strides. Bucky was already at the window, throwing the latch, nearly wrenching it off in his haste. “Bucky, what's the rush?”  
  
Bucky whirled around, shoving his back against the wall beside the window. His eyes darted from Steve to the other room and he said, “They found me.”  
  
His blood ran cold, stomach dropping. “How do you know that?” Steve asked. He couldn't bring himself to say he was a very guarded individual, not after knowing people like Natasha and Tony. But he certainly thought he paid a good deal of attention to his surroundings, even in his home. He'd seen nothing to justify Bucky's claim but he would know what to look for a bit better than Steve.  
  
“They're _here.”_ Bucky watched the room over Steve's shoulder. The quiet action was enough to make Steve feel like eyes were boring into the back of his skull-or maybe a reticule. He couldn't help but look over his shoulder but there was nothing. There was nowhere in the room for anyone to hide. Not even under the bed.  
  
Movement from Bucky made him direct his attention forward again. He was shoving the window open. “Hey, wait. Where are they?”  
  
Bucky stopped, eyes roaming the adjacent buildings, looking for the tell-tale gleam of sunlight on a scope. “They came in. The door, the corridors are compromised. We have to go out this way.”  
  
“No one's come in,” Steve said cautiously. “I can check out-”  
  
“They'll shoot you in the face before you open the door.”  
  
Steve remembered the Lemurian Star, targeting bodies through a metal door, and he knew that was true enough. They could have eyes on Bucky and him from the hall right now. But why hadn't they taken the shot, if that was true? He shook his head. “You said they came in. No one is here. Okay?”  
  
Bucky didn't say anything, eyes fixed on the world outside the window. “I recommend relocation.”  
  
It wasn't impossible or anything. They could go to New York. No one was getting into Tony's place. Not without notifying a dozen different robots, anyway. Maybe it could help Bucky, interacting with someone other than Steve for once. He wasn't convinced that his home was about to be broken into by anyone. But it seemed like, if he was being watched, maybe moving somewhere else for a while wasn't such a bad idea. Just in case. “I'll get some things together,” Steve said. He reached to pick a piece of plaster out of Bucky's hair and he flinched, making Steve hesitate. He withdrew his hand and said, “We'll go out through the front. Show you nothing's there. Okay?”  
  
Bucky looked doubtful. “I'm compelled to advise against that. For your safety.”  
  
Steve kept in a sigh. “I know. But I think it'll be fine. And if not, we'll know for sure.” He couldn't help but feel a little anxious now. It wasn't like he'd never thought about someone finding him before. People at large knew he lived in DC. They just didn't know where, exactly, and the information wasn't easy to get. Short of being followed-which he was absolutely bound to notice-people didn't just wander up to his place. Bucky's certainty made it hard to ignore the possibility, though.  
  
Quickly, he gathered some clothes for them both into two separate bags, throwing in toiletries even if he was certain Tony already had items waiting. He snagged a few books, grimaced at the amount of food that was probably going to go to waste-half a gallon of milk, probably some of the fruits and vegetables, and maybe a carton of eggs-and allowed himself to pack it up too. Despite the concern in Bucky's face, Steve insisted on using the front door.  
  
And sure enough, there were no gun wielding agents in the hall. No beeping explosives. Not even any cameras or bugs that Steve was picking up on at a glance. He wouldn't allow himself to relax completely, just in case. Bucky was even more tense, and Steve had to correct him multiple times to walk facing forwards instead of trying to move back-to-back. It'd attract attention and Steve never wanted that.  
  
He knew one phone call to Tony would've had a jet waiting for them but Steve found that sort of thing wasteful. When he was coming up, you dressed in your Sunday's best to get on a plane-something he had only done once in his life before joining the military. It made sense that air travel would've changed over the course of seven decades, but he still couldn't help thinking of it as something kind of exorbitant, when it wasn't linked to his work. He rented a car and didn't think much of a four or five hour drive.  
  
It could get kind of dull, though. He spent a decent chunk of the first hour talking to Tony, letting him know they were on there way. Bucky's pleading stare made him eventually add, “My apartment may have been bugged. Not sure.”  
  
To which Tony replied casually, probably shrugging his shoulders as he said it, “This is _America,_ Steve. We're all being bugged, all the time. How else would we get our ads for the right brand of toilet paper with our daily news?”  
  
Bucky stared as he absorbed that and Steve grimaced when he said, “HYDRA knows our elimination habits.” It was half question, half admission. Steve didn't want to know more.  
  
“He's kidding. Mostly. I think.” Steve looked sharply at the speaker, even though Tony couldn't see. “Whatever the case, I thought you should know.”  
  
“Yeah, thanks for the heads up. I'll make a note. See you in a few.”  
  
The call ended and the sudden silence seemed heavy and awkward. Bucky didn't look like he felt that way. Steve, on the other hand, lasted a few more minutes before he said, “You can turn on the radio if you want.”  
  
“You are the only ally I have at this time. I don't know who else to call,” Bucky said.  
  
Steve shook his head. “No, I mean-If you want music, or something.”  
  
Bucky stared at him for a moment. Steve pressed his lips together to avoid showing too much. What did he think, that Bucky had been allowed a privilege like that? Did he even care about music or art or anything else people indulged in purely for pleasure and escape? “The driver decides. It is the rule.”  
  
The comment caught him by surprise and he snorted. “Okay,” he said, but he didn't turn anything on. Instead he reviewed the route to the tower. Wondered if they'd miss the worst of the traffic as it'd be past seven by the time they got there. Not that New York was ever a breeze to drive around. He tried to memorize the layout of his living space there. Tony had dedicated entirely too much space for him but maybe Steve would need it now, with Bucky tagging along. Part of him wanted him to interact with the others, to get to know them, to get used to being part of a team that valued you as an equal, not as something beneath them. Another part of him feared explosive misunderstandings and the potential for violence. On meeting Bruce Banner and being stuck thousands of feet in the air with him, one of Tony's first ideas was to _shock_ him. So God only knew what kind of test he would press on Bucky.  
  
He lost track of time. Driving became automatic as he let his thoughts carry him away. They'd have to get someone in to fix his bedroom wall, he'd realized suddenly. He glanced at Bucky, asleep with his head resting against the glass. Steve had no idea why on Earth he'd thought it was better to break through a wall than go through the doorway. Maybe it'd just been the most direct route at the time, but there wasn't anything to run from, so far as Steve could tell. How much longer was he supposed to let this kind of thing slide? How many times was he supposed to convince himself of _next time,_ or _if it gets any worse?_ When and where did he draw the line and force Bucky to see someone about this? Deep down he knew he was worried for Bucky's health. But there was another, more selfish part that was terrified that, if he was pressed too much too quickly, Bucky would bolt. Steve had no idea why he'd come back to begin with, hoping against hope that it was because he remembered him, but he'd shown little to no sign of that. So what if this was a fragile arrangement? What if Steve forcing him to do things he didn't want just ended up making him leave in the end?  
  
“What is it called?”  
  
Steve looked suddenly to his right. Bucky hadn't moved, still slumped against the window. His eyes weren't open. “What's what called?” Sometimes, he remembered things abruptly. So it only made sense that he'd ask abruptly, too.  
  
“The song,” Bucky continued, voice still drowsy. Then he hummed lazily. Steve didn't recognize it at first until Bucky mumbled, “I co-ver the waterfront...”  
  
“That's it,” Steve said. “The name of it, I mean. Probably. I Cover the Waterfront. Didn't recognize the tune.” His eyes scanned the road as he took the exit. And he thought to ask, “Where did you hear it?”  
  
“Here.”  
  
He merged into traffic easily, even as he felt his eyes briefly unfocus. The radio had been silent the entire drive. Steve said nothing, and Bucky continued to hum, eyes closed, maybe opened somewhere else.  
  
The days spent in the tower went much the same way as in Steve's home. Bucky had adapted quickly to the new setting with a minimal amount of stress, so far as Steve could tell. He was passive enough when he met Tony. The man in question grinned when he saw the bag of food Steve couldn't bear to potentially waste but didn't make any smart remarks over it. He explained Jarvis to Bucky, an aspect of life here Steve hadn't even thought to address. But Bucky took it all in stride, as he did with most things. Life changed around him and he wasn't an active force in it. He listened, and he obeyed, and he didn't know what else he was there to do but that.  
  
Things were okay. For awhile. He never told Tony or the others about the issues Bucky had been having, figuring they would've rightly pressured him to get a doctor or therapist involved. It was something Steve knew he needed to do but the longer he put it off, the harder it was to actually face. He wasn't sure what he was even clinging to-Bucky hardly spoke to him, mostly just stayed quietly at the ready, patiently waiting for orders that never really came. This was the precarious balance Steve had struck and he thought for now, it was enough to just have Bucky around. Things could change, maybe, but Steve knew he couldn't control _how_ they would change and so the chance for failure seemed too high. If things got worse, he told himself. If things became violent. If he couldn't pacify an outburst. If he couldn't quell a fear. If he couldn't address a paranoia. If, if, if.  
  
_If_ came about a little over a week later, at one thirty on a Thursday afternoon. He'd been talking logistics with Tony about having a hand in the restructuring of SHIELD or whether it'd be plausible to create a new organization altogether and it'd somehow veered off into a casual argument over whether or not it was necessary for Steve to ever watch the Star Wars prequels. The argument was interrupted by Jarvis, an alarmed tone making the urgency of the situation plain as he said, “Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes needs your assistance immediately.”  
  
“Where?” Steve all but barked as he got to his feet from the couch.  
  
“The guest bathroom of your living quarters,” he responded quickly. “I have attempted to talk him down without results.”  
  
“Talk him _down?_ ” Tony echoed from a few feet behind.  
  
“What's going on?” Steve asked as he ran. He took the stairs, two flights between the common area he'd been in with Tony and his floor. He didn't explicitly mean to leave Tony in the dust, but he couldn't take the time to allow him to keep up.  
  
“He's convinced something is under his skin and he's digging it out with a knife.”  
  
“Jesus,” Steve huffed. “Tell him I ordered him to stop, I'm coming.” It couldn't have been more than a few minutes. It felt too long, regardless. The bathroom door was locked. As a courtesy, Tony didn't let the AI control the locks inside their living quarters. Steve had appreciated that at first. Now he was wondering if it could be changed. “Bucky!” he shouted to be heard but got no response. He gritted his teeth and kicked once. The door ripped away from the jamb easily, wood splintering.  
  
Bucky was sitting on the edge of the tub. The porcelain was smeared with blood, it pooled on his thigh and slid away in fat drops, coursing down his bare leg. The fingers of his right hand were covered in it as he dug into the wound he'd gouged into the top of his thigh. His left hand clutched a knife tightly, one from the kitchen. By his foot there were-  
  
Steve held back the wave of nausea as he processed that the few small, bloody gobs in the tub were chunks of Bucky's flesh. “Sir, I've been compromised,” Bucky explained, an almost frantic tone in his voice. He withdrew the fingers of his right hand, shaking it. Steve was certain the wet smack of tissue being flung against the hard surface of the tub would find its way into his dreams the next time he slept.  
  
“Stop!” Steve ordered.  
  
“I can't, I have to-to get it. It's-I've seen it, my skin was-” He dug his fingers into the wound as he spoke, lips trembling.  
  
“Bucky, stop this, right now, or I'm going to take action,” Steve warned him, stepping closer.  
  
Bucky stiffened,, but he said, “Sir, I have to. I have to prevent it from-”  
  
“There's nothing there!”  
  
“I've seen it. It made my skin clear. Like glass. It's burrowing in my leg. It's alive. I have to kill it.” His voice rose as he spoke, and he suddenly jerked viciously at the wound and ground his teeth together against the pain. Steve saw his left hand tense and that was enough. He jolted forward to grab Bucky as he shoved the knife into his leg. He let out an awful noise from deep in his throat, grinding his teeth together. Steve held him by the wrist, refusing to let him bury the blade any further.  
  
“Let go, now,” Steve said in the most severe voice he could muster. He could give orders, if that's what he had to do. It was nothing he wasn't used to. He hated to do it to Bucky, but hated seeing him tear himself apart even more.  
  
Bucky looked him in the eye, desperate as he said, “Steve, please.” His face was pale. Had he always been that pale?  
  
“There is _nothing_ there,” Steve said firmly, maintaining eye contact. The smallest amount of relief worked at the knot in his chest as he felt Bucky's wrist loosen up beneath his iron grip, the plates shifting minutely away from each other.  
  
“I saw it,” Bucky insisted quietly.  
  
“Jarvis-” Steve started but he'd anticipated what he was going to ask.  
  
“No scans indicate the presence of any foreign objects or parasites,” he responded gently, as if mindful of Bucky's feelings. “No one has been in your quarters today save for you and Sergeant Barnes.”  
  
“I _saw_ it,” Bucky repeated, right hand shaking now with either adrenaline or blood loss or a mix of both. He set it on the wound and when Steve saw his knuckles tense, he grabbed his hand and squeezed to keep him from ripping into it further.  
  
“It's okay,” Steve said. Bucky didn't seem so certain. “You need a doctor. They'll verify for you that nothing's there, okay?” Steve kept to himself that he might need more than one kind. This was the limit and he had to face it, whether he wanted to or not. Bucky's mind wasn't functioning correctly and it wasn't something Steve could hope to get better on its own anymore. He never should have to begin with.  
  
Steve looked at the awful, ugly mess of ripped flesh and pooled blood. He couldn't see how deep it went-it was too full of blood. But it spanned the width of Bucky's thigh. The middle was the worst part, the ends just barely splitting the surface of the skin. He briefly squeezed his eyes shut as he remembered the pieces of muscle Bucky had torn out of himself littering the tub. “Jarvis,” he said. “Is there someone available to treat this right now?”  
  
“I've already contacted the on-call physician. The facility on the 63rd floor is prepared to receive a patient.”  
  
“Thanks.” He looked at Bucky again. “I'm going to let go of you now. You aren't going to hurt yourself further.” He didn't allow room for questions, for a liberal interpretation.  
  
“Understood,” Bucky responded in that automatic kind of way Steve hated with everything he had. Not because of Bucky, but because of what'd been done to him.  
  
He slowly withdrew his hands, unsure if Bucky would just start sawing and ripping at himself the minute Steve let go. Instead his hands migrated back to his sides, leaving prints in red on the once spotless white of the tub. The knife shifted a little in his leg when Bucky let it go, and Steve winced in sympathy but Bucky just stared at the wall, waiting for further instruction. He turned away quickly, grabbing one of the clean towels out of the cabinet and tearing it in half. Carefully, he bunched it around the knife. The blue fabric turned an ugly brown as it soaked up the blood. He looked up at Bucky as he did his best to tie the other strip tightly in place. His eyes were vacant, half-lidded. Steve said his name. He seemed to come back, so he continued, “Can you stand up?”  
  
Bucky nodded, so Steve took his arm and draped it over his shoulders. “Count of three-”  
  
“I can walk, sir.”  
  
“Not on that leg. It'll hurt, and could make the injury worse,” Steve said. Bucky didn't seem to think pain was any reason to avoid doing something that would accomplish a goal, and Steve wasn't going to let that line of thinking continue. He'd ignored enough of Bucky's problems already. “So on the count of three, I'll help you stand up. Don't use your left leg, okay?”  
  
“Understood.”  
  
They managed it. Steve knew he probably could've scooped Bucky up and carried him but knew it would've been something like humiliating him. Not because he was being carried, but because he'd been deemed incapable. Steve watched him as they walked, made sure his foot didn't touch the ground. They made it down to the 63rd floor without further incident, though blood continued to drip in long lines down Bucky's leg.  
  
Tony was already there, waiting. He eyed Bucky's leg silently, for once saying nothing. That kept up until Steve came back out alone. “So. Is there something you'd like to share with the class?”  
  
Steve sighed through his nose. “Something's wrong with him.”  
  
“There's a Shyamalan twist if I ever heard one,” Tony muttered.  
  
Steve didn't know who that was but sarcasm was sarcasm. “He has these-I don't know. Delusions. He thinks I've given him orders to do something, or thinks someone's after him. And they weren't ever really violent, before. Just...odd. I thought I could work with that. I can put up with a little strangeness while he gets used to everything. I could get him the help he needed when he was ready.”  
  
“Then he decided to strum on his femoral artery because...?” Tony asked, crossing his arms and leaning back against the wall.  
  
“He thought something was under his skin.”  
  
“And it's not. Because Jarvis would've noticed by now.”  
  
Steve nodded slowly and dropped into one of the provided chairs. “I didn't mean to make this your responsibility,” he said.  
  
Tony shrugged. “You didn't. It's yours. I'm just on the sidelines.”  
  
“I mean it wasn't something I wanted anyone to know about. For his own privacy. And because no one should feel obligated to help out with problems like this.”  
  
“No one but you, right?”  
  
He curled his lip, the thought leaving a bad taste in his mouth. How widely Tony had missed the mark on that one. Steve had refused to help at all, and that's exactly why this was happening now. He could fix that though, so he would. He owed Bucky that much. “Is there some way to find help for him? Something that would stay private and-I mean they'd have to understand the risk involved.”  
  
“I've got names. I'll have Jarvis get them to you.” Tony cocked his head, watching Steve. He was sure he was the picture of despair right now, slumped in the chair, exhausted not just with concern but self-loathing. “Don't sweat it. They build you guys pretty tough, from what I've seen.”  
  
Steve snorted. Maybe they didn't. And that was exactly the problem.  
  
Bucky was eventually released, head hung in shame when Steve looked at him. He didn't know what to say to him to make this better, didn't know if Bucky would believe him if he said it wasn't his fault. That he had nothing to feel guilty for. Part of going insane was that you didn't understand anything was wrong. But hell if Steve knew how to address the topic in a way that wouldn't just make things worse. Instead he asked Bucky if he was okay, if there was anything he could get for him, if there was something he wanted.  
  
And Bucky stared at him like he was the crazy one after all.  
  
It was two days before a meeting could be arranged but so far as Steve heard, it wasn't exactly a success. Bucky had sat silently, the doctor unwilling to push him too hard. And Steve knew Bucky's thought process before he even admitted to it that evening-Steve was his superior, and Steve was who he answered to. “Next time,” Steve said, forcing his voice to remain level and neutral, “you can answer their questions.” He bit back the _if you're comfortable._ He had no idea if that was the right thing to do or not.  
  
Tony must've been talking with the others, because Natasha came around the very next day. Which was impressive, because last Steve had heard, she'd been halfway across the world. She made no mention of where she'd been and all she had to say when she saw Bucky for the first time since the freeway attack, eyeing his still-wounded leg, was a single world in Russian: _sloppy.  
  
_ Bucky largely ignored her but Steve realized quickly it was in an entirely different manner than how he ignored Tony. Tony he would glance at and dismiss. Natasha he would secretly look for out of the corner of his eye, like he was keeping tabs. Steve had to wonder if it was the best idea for her to be around right now but didn't say anything. She ended up being a more relaxing presence for him, at least. Both her and Tony, really. Having gone weeks with no one but Bucky as company had taken a toll. Bucky was complicated-they all were, really, but he was most of all. Difficult to approach, impossible to talk to in a meaningful way. He didn't have this issue with Tony or Natasha anymore and it was like a relief, knowing that he was still capable of communicating with others. Of having normal conversations, without wondering what unintended impacts his words might have on them. It wasn't at all that he disliked Bucky. He just cared so much that he didn't know where to begin, fearing sudden abandonment all the while.  
  
Maybe Natasha understood some of this to a degree. Could be she just knew he needed to be able to unwind a little, regardless of everything else. She often implied he didn't take good care of himself and Steve had no idea if that was true or not. People didn't really take much stock in that _share your feelings_ stuff back when he was coming up, especially not men. If he was private on that front, he couldn't help it. It just came natural. It didn't help that the one person in the world he used to talk to about things like that barely knew who he was anymore. Either way, Natasha's trip back here seemed to be aimed at distracting him from his concerns long enough to take a step back from them. He could only acknowledge they were there once they ceased to be so all-consuming, the way you might get used to some incessant, but muted noise you hadn't even noticed until its absence had your attention.  
  
She roped him into games and movie marathons and extravagant dinners. Stories about her and Clint's often absurd escapades. Bucky was never excluded but he kept Natasha at arms length and she didn't ever ask anything of him, leaving that to Steve instead. Another few days passed. Steve discovered you could eat a filling meal without any meat being involved. Bucky made no substantial progress on his second session with the doctor, simply describing the barest outline of his previous 'wake cycle' as he referred to it since his days didn't always conform to a standard sixteen hour platform. At the very least he didn't exhibit any further worrying behavior. At first.  
  
Natasha dug up another game for them to try. Tony claimed it would be unfair of him to demolish them since he thought so much quicker than they did but still played anyway. Steve liked it, even if he found he was kind of bad at word games. Bucky slept, and he didn't generally participate in the games anyway, just sitting by, watching them. Maybe more accurately, watching Natasha, so long as she was around Steve.  
  
Steve thought he heard a noise from the other room. But no one else seemed to notice and he figured if it was anything serious, Jarvis would notify them. He returned his focus to the game, even if he knew they weren't going to be beating Tony. Natasha was giving him a run for his money though, her voice actually becoming giddy in a way Steve didn't often hear as she scrambled to keep up with him. They taunted and challenged each other across the table and Steve smiled a little, idly picking at the tiles in front of him.  
  
He heard someone shuffle into the room behind him, and his sensitive ears picked up the sound of Bucky's arm so he said without looking up, “Hey.”  
  
“Good evening there-uh, oh,” Tony interrupted himself, which, to be fair, was something he did quite often. But the startled tone of it had Steve and Natasha looking up. Steve saw almost immediately what Tony had, the wetness at the crotch of Bucky's pants. He couldn't smell urine and he caught sight of something milky white smeared on the fingers of Bucky's right hand and a blush crept unbidden to his cheeks.  
  
“Bucky, hey,” Steve began, sort of unsure where he'd finish. It wasn't a discussion he thought he'd ever be having with him, let alone in front of anyone else.  
  
It got about a thousand times worse when, before Steve could offer to guide him to the bathroom, Bucky dropped to his knees in front of Steve and started trying to take off his pants. Everyone made an alarmed noise in unison, Tony pushing himself back from the table and Natasha shouting Steve's name. Steve grabbed Bucky by the wrists immediately and said, “No-what're you doing?”  
  
Bucky looked up at him, utterly confused. “You told me to.”  
  
He could instantly feel their eyes on him and the heat on his cheeks and ears was like a fire now. “I never-”  
  
“Steve,” Natasha said very severely, giddiness vanished.  
  
He looked at her quickly. “I didn't tell him _anything_ like that,” he said in his own defense. He thought his friends expected better of him than taking advantage of Bucky's precarious grasp of social conventions. Although he supposed he could admit how bad this looked. He turned his eyes back to Bucky, trying to ignore Tony's incredulous stare and gaping mouth. Nothing had ever kept him this quiet before but Steve didn't exactly feel like relishing in that accomplishment if this is what it took. “Bucky, start from the beginning. What happened?”  
  
Again, there was that confusion and he didn't have the presence of mind to be ashamed that he'd just walked in here in front of everyone with semen staining his pants. “We returned to Washington. You touched my genitals and ordered me to use my mouth-”  
  
“Bucky, nothing like that ever happened,” Steve said quickly in his own defense before Natasha gutted him. “I swear,” he added, looking at the others.  
  
“It did,” Bucky insisted, holding up his right hand.  
  
Steve held back a cringe and shook his head. “We haven't been in Washington in over a week, Buck,” he reminded him, trying to bring his tone back to something a little less frantic.  
  
Bucky stared for a moment. But he persisted. “We were there. In your apartment. You touched me.”  
  
“No,” Steve said. “That didn't happen.” He looked back at Tony, who was still stunned. Then he made himself look at Natasha and resisted the urge to crumple under her glare.  
  
She looked at Bucky and asked, “How long ago was this?”  
  
“Now...” he said slowly, as if unsure. Then his eyes narrowed. “Earlier. We were in Washington.” He said it like he was trying to piece things together that didn't quite fit. And it shouldn't, because it never happened. Steve had no idea what to make of the accusation. It couldn't be a disjointed memory-Steve had never touched Bucky like that, ever.  
  
“You know where you are, right?” Tony asked, the shock in his face having receded somewhat as he joined the search for answers.  
  
“New York,” Bucky muttered, brows inching towards each other. “We were-there. And now-” He looked down at himself. “I was asleep? When you took me there. And back.” It was less of a resolute answer and more of a suggestion.  
  
“You were asleep,” Steve echoed. Bucky nodded.  
  
“Oh,” Tony said suddenly. “Oh wow. I think I have a suggestion. About everything. And it's a horrifying one, but-”  
  
“You don't know what dreams are,” Natasha said slowly, hardened glare softening to something like pity.  
  
“Way to steal my thunder,” Tony muttered.  
  
Steve refused to process that suggestion at first. How was that possible? _Everyone_ had dreams so why wouldn't Bucky know what they were? Sure, maybe his sleep cycle was a little erratic, with bouts often too short and disrupted to properly have a dream. HYDRA had never kept him out of cryo long enough to allow him to sleep. And- “Oh my God,” Steve said under his breath, swiping at his face. He looked at Bucky again and tightened his grip on his wrists. “Is that true? Do you not know what dreaming is?”  
  
Bucky stared, cautious, confused, clearly waiting for some kind of reprimand. Then he shook his head slowly.  
  
“Bucky, Jesus,” Steve said as he managed to breathe out around the tightness in his chest. He thought back briefly on all the bizarre behavior he'd just chalked up to inherent psychological issues that came with seventy years of torture. His hand sank into Bucky's hair and he felt like such a piece of shit for not realizing all of this sooner, for leaving Bucky to just deal with whatever horrifying things his mind conjured up while he slept. Anything he saw in his dreams, he must've thought it was _real._ And what had Steve done to help him through that? What had he done to listen and understand and reassure instead of just shrugging his shoulders, shoving him at a doctor, and assuming he was screwed up in ways Steve couldn't help with? “Bucky, I'm sorry, I didn't know. I didn't-”  
  
Bucky's eyes widened like he was waiting for something.  
  
Steve shook his head. “No, no, it's okay, you aren't in trouble or anything like that, okay?”  
  
“I don't understand,” he all but whispered, startled eyes darting from Steve to Natasha to Tony. And that just made Steve feel even worse. It was clear Bucky knew something had been wrong, something _he'd_ done was wrong, but he didn't quite grasp how or what.  
  
“Steve,” Natasha said, standing up. Bucky's eyes went to her instantly. “Steve help him get cleaned up and we'll explain this together. Okay?”  
  
He nodded, forever grateful for the stability his friends provided when he needed it. He patted Bucky on the shoulder gently, prompting him to stand up. He led the way back to Bucky's room, the silence tense with worry and anticipation. “It's really okay,” Steve said, having to say something. “It is. It's just-hard, sometimes.”  
  
Bucky said nothing and Steve didn't make him. He knew he wasn't saying much of substance to begin with. They stopped outside the room Bucky was staying in and Steve said, “Go ahead and get a change of clothes. When you're done cleaning up, come back out to us. It's really okay. You aren't in trouble.” Bucky eyed him warily, but disappeared behind the door and Steve wondered how many times he'd been given that promise before.  
  
Steve drew a hand over his face as he walked, covering his mouth. He approached the kitchen the others still occupied. He could hear them talking quietly, Tony ticking off the reasons someone like Bucky might have gone so long without dreaming. The cryo sleep wasn't sleep, it was a step above death. The brain would be shut down, and wouldn't be producing any dreams, let alone remembering them. HYDRA keeping Bucky out only long enough to complete an assignment meant no sleeping on the job. He'd return to cryo, back to his coma, and so it'd go for seventy years until he forgot what it was to sleep and dream, all memory of a normal life erased by HYDRA.  
  
“...and when you think about it, it's gotta be pretty fucking terrifying to have a dream without knowing what it is,” Tony said, spreading his hands. “I mean I don't know about you guys, but I've had some messed up dreams and if I didn't know they weren't real...” He blew out a breath and shook his head. Steve understood perfectly. Even dreams that weren't horrific recollections of battlefields could be alarming and strange, enough to make an already disoriented mind even more confused. Like thinking you owed sexual favors to your caretaker. He squeezed his eyes shut as he dropped into his chair at the table, trying to keep the thought out of his mind.  
  
“I can't believe I never thought about it,” Steve muttered.  
  
“Steve, no one could anticipate something like that,” Natasha said. “It's just so unnatural, to not know this. It's like not knowing how to breathe.”  
  
It didn't reassure him any. He couldn't help but feel like he'd failed Bucky in yet another way. The tense silence must've gotten to Tony because he said, “Hey, at least you know he likes you.”  
  
Steve stared at him and Natasha sighed heavily but said nothing. “I don't think dreams like that always mean what you think they do,” Steve said with a little bite. Tony shrugged like it was inconsequential. Steve knew better than to take it personally, at least when it came from Tony. He sighed and shook his head. “I keep thinking of everything. Trying to decide whether he did something weird because of this or because of some other reason I'm missing just as much as this one.” The bath tub full of canned food. The time he ran through a wall to get away from the people he was certain were after him. Tearing open his leg because he thought something was inside of him that shouldn't be. Suddenly he recalled the supposed seizure Bucky had had one of his first nights at Steve's. Shaking like he was at the mercy of an electric current. His unwillingness to sleep on the couch afterward. “Shit,” Steve sighed to himself, unable to contain his frustration.  
  
“You can't undo anything that's already happened,” Natasha said. It was something she reminded him of all the time, particularly when he was in a bad way. He valued the mantra greatly, knowing it was one she used for herself and she wasn't one to often share such private things with others.  
  
He turned around immediately when he heard Bucky step tentatively into the room. His arms were trying not to cross themselves over his chest. Steve briefly wondered if this was a habit HYDRA had demanded him to break but tried to focus on a single awful aspect of Bucky's reality at a time before he became buried in it. “Hey,” Steve said, waving to him. He came forward, trying to watch all three of them at once.  
  
“Okay,” Tony said, sucking in a breath as he did. “So. You don't know what dreams are.”  
  
Bucky shook his head and then followed Steve's gestured suggestion to sit in the available chair. He muttered miserably, “I was unaware there would be a change in protocol.”  
  
Steve gritted his teeth.  
  
“It's not protocol,” Natasha said evenly. “It's biology. You never had time to sleep before, did you?”  
  
Again, he shook his head.  
  
“And I'm willing to bet you didn't even know you had to sleep, right? I mean, at first,” Tony said.  
  
“No.” Bucky watched them, and when they remained quiet, he hesitantly began to explain, “You never put me back. In the ice. To rest.” He stopped himself, like he was waiting for the bubble to burst, for the tension in the air to pop, violently, punishingly. But no one said anything. No one moved, patiently allowing for further explanation. So Bucky continued, as if pressured to do so. “Following the failure of Project Insight, after seventy-six continuous hours of operation, I noticed a decrease in my ability to function. After one hundred and ninety-two hours of continuous operation, the aforementioned decrease in functionality became too significant to ignore. I began to lose consciousness for brief periods of time. With no support network available for diagnostics, I returned to-” He faltered, glancing at Steve. “You were the only one left who knew me. That might fix me.”  
  
Steve nodded slowly, trying to keep his brow from furrowing, to keep from frowning. “I told you to get some sleep.”  
  
“Your orders were unfamiliar,” Bucky explained. He looked at his hands as he spoke, picking at a hangnail. His voice came mildly rushed now, as if admitting to a wrongdoing he'd been holding in. “You knew me. But I didn't know you. I didn't know what you would do if I failed to comply. You said 'lay down and get some sleep'. I didn't remember sleep. I didn't remember what it meant. I laid down and shortly after lost consciousness. When I regained consciousness, you asked if I slept okay. You seemed pleased that I'd passed out. As I understand it, this is sleep.”  
  
Steve stared, never realizing how much tension Bucky had been holding back, how much he must've initially feared Steve. Something as simple and straightforward as going to bed was a giant, panic-worthy mystery to Bucky, and Steve hadn't even stopped to ask if he understood.  
  
Natasha's cool voice cut through his thoughts. “Yes. Sleeping is a necessity. You have to sleep to give your mind and body time to rest.”  
  
He glanced up at her, a look Steve had learned was a silent request to speak. She raised her eyebrows, allowing for him to do so. “I understood. Unconsciousness led to improved functionality. I thought-” He looked up suddenly, a slight fear in his eyes.  
  
“You thought,” Steve said, urging him to continue.  
  
“I thought unconsciousness was symptomatic of a head injury or illness. I thought you would know if I was injured. You never said so. I continued allowing myself to become unconscious. Sleep.” He pressed his lips together tightly, brow knitted. Then he looked up at Steve. “How do I know? Whether it is sleep or injury that makes me unconscious?”  
  
Steve's stomach felt impossibly empty. He stared at the image, the shell of James Barnes and didn't know the poor, wretched creature hidden inside of it.  
  
“The basics,” Tony said, settling further into his chair. “You usually feel pain when you're injured, right?”  
  
Bucky nodded.  
  
“So no pain is a sign it's sleep. No fever or illness? Also probably just sleep. Another thing, you wake up kind of refreshed, then it's probably sleep. But there's a catch, because if the quality of your sleep isn't that great, you might not feel so great when you wake up.”  
  
The confusion returned and Bucky quietly echoed the words, “Quality of sleep...”  
  
“It's not something you're tested on,” Steve said quickly, already seeing the wrong gears turning in Bucky's head. “There's no-You don't get in trouble for it. It just means whether you slept well enough to feel rested or not. Like if you wake up a lot through the night, that could make you tired the next day.”  
  
“There is a way you're meant to sleep?”  
  
“Typically you sleep in eight hour cycles at night,” Natasha answered. “Not everyone does, though.”  
  
Steve didn't miss the look she threw his way. He wasn't oblivious and neither were his friends. “It's a goal,” Steve added with a shrug. “Are you understanding all of this?”  
  
Bucky nodded slowly. “I do not sleep for eight hours.”  
  
“Why? Does something wake you up? Are you too uncomfortable? Too cold or too warm? Hungry? We can change all of those things, try to help you sleep better,” Tony offered.  
  
But Bucky thought for a moment. “I wake up. For missions. To go places. Or...”  
  
“Those would be the dreams,” Tony said. They all knew no one gave Bucky missions anymore. “When we sleep, our brain is still working. And it gives us these funny little scenarios to play out in our heads. Sometimes you're just processing things you did the day before. Sometimes it's just bizarre. Scary. Um, or fun.” Steve sighed at the sidelong glance Tony shot his way but said nothing.  
  
“Dreams,” Bucky repeated. He sat back, hands returning to his lap as he considered it.  
  
Steve nodded. “Sometimes it's hard to tell what was a dream and what wasn't because they can be so much like a memory. They usually feel pretty real when you're having them. Sometimes things don't feel quite right.”  
  
“When I leave without remembering how I left, it's a dream?” he asked.  
  
“Probably, yes,” Natasha said.  
  
“The time you thought you pissed all over the fruit in the common dining area was probably you confusing a dream for reality,” Tony put in to give a solid example. Steve closed his eyes to keep from rolling them because Tony was never going to get over the irony that Steve had brought a bag of groceries from home to avoid wasting them only to have Bucky throw out about as much food for seemingly no good reason.  
  
Bucky considered it but said nothing. He looked at Steve. “Can you tell me? When it's real or not?”  
  
Steve hesitated, unsure he could commit to something like that. How could he know? Maybe sometimes it'd be pretty obvious, but others might be more subtle. “I can try. When you wake up, if you think you've been somewhere, or done something strange, you can tell me.”  
  
He thought the agreement would please Bucky, but he still seemed disappointed, in a way. And maybe Steve understood why. They'd all said how basic this information was, how everyone had it. But not Bucky. Steve almost said something, but swallowed it down when Tony moved on, extolling the virtues of something called lucid dreaming. Natasha argued with him about it and the conversation veered off course. Steve caught himself staring at Bucky, who watched the other two while they spoke, desperate to absorb any other so-called 'obvious' information. Anything to help him feel closer to human.  
  
It couldn't be explained in a brief chat. Dreaming was something he'd understand better the more he experienced it. Because once you knew, of course it seemed absurd. Of course it was obviously unreal. But while it was happening, it might not feel that way. Bucky would have to figure that part out himself, even if Steve offered what help he could.  
  
The offer was taken up the next night. Steve hadn't gone to bed yet. It was late, but that didn't mean he was asleep. Jarvis warned him of an impending question with a pleasant tone, something Steve appreciated. There was nothing like being startled out of your thoughts by a disembodied voice without warning, and Tony was thoughtful to take that into consideration. “Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes is requesting your location.”  
  
“He can come in. Is he okay?”  
  
“Yes, sir. He would like to discuss something with you.”  
  
“Okay. Thanks.” It was a few minutes later he heard shuffling feet, saw the disruption of the line of faint light under the door. It opened, and Bucky stood there a minute, waiting. Maybe he thought Steve would change his mind. “Hey, Buck.” He waved him in, sat up and moved to the edge of the side of the bed. It'd been raining outside and the glass of the window was still littered with beads of water.  
  
Bucky came in and sat, leaving space for a third person between them. He said nothing. Steve thought of asking him, but didn't want to push. Not just yet. He gave him a few minutes and they both stared out the window, not entirely ignoring the others' presence. Finally, Bucky said, “You offered to tell me if something was a dream.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Bucky's eyes lowered to the floor as he spoke. Funny how it worked with him. It seemed only to ever be everything at once or nothing at all. “We were in a forest. I felt, somehow-a bad instinct. Something would go wrong, soon.” He lightly held the tips of his fingers against his own chest for a second before dropping his hand back to his side. “Then there was water everywhere. Waves coming down over our heads. I couldn't swim. I was too weak and I nearly drowned. Initially I assumed you must have prevented that and returned me here, where I woke. But I know how to swim, and I'm strong enough to swim against very difficult currents. So I thought that...it must be a dream.” The inflection in his voice raised slightly, like he wanted to ask but wouldn't quite commit. Like he wanted to show Steve he could figure it out for himself without being a hundred percent sure that he had.  
  
Steve nodded. “Yeah. Sounds like a dream. A lot of the time stuff like that happens, where you feel weaker or slower than you know you really are.” Steve figured he was one of the few people who'd experienced that in reality. As a five foot four nothing suddenly transformed into something superhuman, he still remembered what it was like to be truly weak and ineffectual, even if he wasn't now.  
  
“Why?”  
  
He shrugged, never having really thought about that before. “I guess...maybe it has to do with being afraid of failing at something. You feel in your head like you aren't good enough, so you have a dream that manifests that in a literal scenario.”  
  
There was another brief silence. Steve kept his gaze directed out the window and Bucky did the same. “Do you dream?” Bucky asked, unwilling to look at him.  
  
“Yeah,” Steve said.  
  
“Can you tell me?”  
  
He closed his eyes as he thought. He had dreams. Ones he remembered easily. Horror stories. Even those not outright terrifying or disturbing tended to have a pervasive sense of dread or impending doom to them. It was rare to have a good one and he tried, tried to think of one. Something positive to tell Bucky. And he realized maybe he needed to tell him about the awful ones. Not just to make him see he wasn't the only one with bad dreams. “I dream of you. I'm running to catch you, but it's never fast enough. Trying to swing my fist, but it's not strong enough to stop them from hurting you. I'm trying to save you and I can't,” he said.  
  
“Save me,” Bucky repeated.  
  
Steve nodded. “Because I want you to be safe, and happy. And deep down I think it's my fault that you aren't. That I don't have the tools to give those things to you. And deep down, I'm still mourning for the person you were even as I try to process and accept who you are now.” His chest was tight and he was unsure that this was at all the right thing to tell Bucky. If he'd understand, if he'd even care, if he'd feel so hurt by the admission that he'd want to leave.  
  
But Bucky showed no outward signs of much distress. Just a small amount of confusion as he asked, “Who am I now?”  
  
“I don't know.”  
  
Bucky blinked and Steve almost laughed. He really did think Steve had all the answers. “How will I know when I'm someone?”  
  
“You're always someone, Bucky. You just...” Steve stopped, realized the phrasing was wrong and shook his head. “I don't know you so well, is all. I'd like to. I know we can't go back to who we were before. And that's hard. That's really hard to accept.”  
  
Bucky looked down at his hands, fingers slowly curling inward, pressing against his palms. The quiet softness of flesh and the humming hardness of metal. “If you can debrief me it's possible that I can-”  
  
Steve shook his head, furrowing his brow. “No, Bucky. I can't tell you who to be. Nobody can do that but you. And you've lived long enough trying to be what other people told you to be. It never should've been that way and I'm not about to let you keep doing that to yourself, even if that's easier. Because I'm sure it would be. I'm sure it must be the most daunting thing in the world to feel like you feel now. How do you decide from scratch who you are when you have nothing to go off of?”  
  
Bucky stared out the window as he said, “A gun that won't fire is useless. A soldier who won't obey is traitorous. These are the things I know I am.”  
  
Steve pressed his lips together, keeping from baring his teeth in sheer hatred for the people who did this to Bucky. “And what about a person? A person who gets up every day, and despite the weight of all the wrongness that's been done to him, he doesn't turn bitter and angry and hateful? A person who has all the right in the world to want to hurt someone but shakes his head and says there's been enough hurt? Seems to me you're those things, too. Kind. Selfless. Don't you know that?”  
  
Bucky closed his eyes. When he opened them he turned to look at Steve. “In the deepest part of my head, my brain, there is old code. Memory. Fragmented. Hard to see. It tells me about-about someone. Someone who I wanted to be, an example, someone good and just, who always knew the right thing to do, but I couldn't be that. I couldn't because I was already-” His eyes wandered to his hand, the left hand, and his fingers relaxed away from his palm. “Now, if I am too impaired to be a weapon, too disobedient a soldier, I think-” He looked Steve in the eye, expression somehow relieved and serious all at the same time. Steve swallowed, felt dissected and bare. “I think it's the most like him I've ever been.”  
  
Steve let out a breath in an attempt to alleviate the empty feeling in his stomach. He leaned over and wrapped Bucky in a hug. Everything felt better when Bucky lifted an arm to hug him back, however hesitant and uncertain at first. He didn't know if it was right, to let Bucky aspire towards being more like him. What made him so special? Who decided he was such a great example? But all this time he'd been wanting Bucky to speak up for himself, think for himself, and Steve asking these things made him realize Bucky finally had. Maybe he had the whole time and just never thought it was the right time to say it. He'd expressed the desire to emulate what he thought were good qualities in another person. And isn't that what most people did? So who was Steve to say it was the wrong thing to think just because the person being emulated was him?  
  
Steve knew a lot of people looked up to him and he never understood it. He tried to do his best but knew he wasn't perfect. He could think of a thousand things wrong with who he was. But he couldn't bring himself to argue the point with Bucky. “Never been more flattered in my life, Buck,” he said with a small laugh.  
  
Bucky let go, and Steve forced himself to do the same. It was the closest he'd felt to him in all this time, and he was afraid of losing that. But Bucky didn't seem ready to leave, so maybe he just had to stop worrying about it and be here now. “I'm not sure of everything,” Bucky said. “But I am sure of that. The rest...” He shook his head and said nothing else. Steve didn't press him to. They were okay with the silence, with the quiet and flickering lights of the city below.  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Sandman comics: “You know what the really scary thing about bad dreams? It's that something's going on in your head, and you can't control it. I mean, It's like there's these bad worlds inside you. But it's just you... it's like you're betraying yourself.” 
> 
> The version of "I Cover the Waterfront" which Bucky hums is the Billie Holiday one. It would have been released after his and Steve's "deaths". 
> 
> The inspiration weirdly enough came from a track title off of the James Cameron Avatar film soundtrack, "You Don't Dream In Cryo".


End file.
